Statement by IHCA on comments by Minister Simon Harris on overcrowding in University Limerick Hospitals Group

The IHCA, commenting on Oireachtas Health Committee meeting yesterday in relation to the unacceptable overcrowding in the University Hospital Limerick (UHL) Emergency Department, said Minister Harris is incorrect in saying that UHL doctors (Consultants), other than surgeons, are not travelling to smaller hospitals. On the contrary, the majority of consultants in UHL, not just surgeons, are working in other hospitals in addition to UHL. This includes St John’s, Ennis, Nenagh, Newcastle West and Thurles Hospitals. 

The IHCA said Minister Harris’s comments are a blatant effort to deflect the blame from the government and three successive Ministers of Health since 2011 for their failure to increase the acute hospital bed capacity and properly resource UHL following the centralisation of complex emergency and other care there when Ennis and Nenagh Hospitals were downgraded and their acute bed capacity was reduced.  

In addition, Minister Harris needs to acknowledge that the reconfiguration in the University Limerick Hospitals Group, which removed Intensive Care from the smaller hospitals, limits the type of acutely ill medical patients that can be cared for in the Group’s smaller hospitals.  

The IHCA said that the root cause of the unacceptable number of patients being treated on trolleys in UHL is the lack of sufficient acute bed capacity in UHL and the low number of consultants due to the difficulty in filling permanent consultant posts because of the Government’s discrimination against new consultants. 
                                                                
ENDS. 

For information contact:

 
Amanda Glancy, PR360, 01 6371 777/087 2273108 amanda@pr360.ie
Lauren Murphy, PR360, 01 637 1777/ 083 8015917 lauren@pr360.ie